


spin me a tale most woeful

by willkommen



Category: Cabaret - Kander/Ebb
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Holocaust, Multi, Nazis, sally centric, the emcee is sort of a dark fuck prince, what ya gonna do
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-15
Updated: 2015-04-15
Packaged: 2018-03-23 03:51:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3753454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/willkommen/pseuds/willkommen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, Sally wondered if he had known what was coming.</p>
            </blockquote>





	spin me a tale most woeful

**Author's Note:**

> Long time reader and commenter, but this is my first work. Please be gentle, as I love it deeply. I have not been able to get this little thing out of my head. Apologies for errors, sloppiness, etc.

Sometimes, Sally wondered if he had known what was coming.

 

She’d never really known much about him, like everyone else at the club. For all of his expression, he never shared much. He volleyed questions back expertly, side-stepped and cloaked in innuendo and masked with a sidelong smirk. She’d always thought, however, that there must have been more to him than he’d ever let most see. Most.

 

His presence offstage had been a subdued version of his emcee persona. He still waggled his eyebrows and smirked devilishly. He was not performing, though, so he was quieter and more coy than outright explicit. People approached him and could joke with him easily, but he did keep a wall between himself and everyone, even the cabaret dancers. Still, everyone revered him. He was their king, their prophet.

 

Sally knew he was a good man, even if he was not very good. She’d learned this early on, when she’d first started living with Max and working in the club. She’d ended up in the girls’ lounge on the dingy couch, crying with a bruise forming on her cheek. She’d barely noticed him as he slunk in.

 

“Sally Bowles,” he said from the doorway. “You are still here.” She’d sat up quickly, terribly embarrassed, furiously wiping her face and hiding her cheek behind her hand.

 

“Goodness, you frightened me! Aren’t you supposed--”

 

“Your cheek,” He interrupted. He perched on the arm of the chair. “Hiding your face is pointless, Frauline Bowles.” She lowered her shaking hand, looking away. He was silent. She looked back up, and saw him looking at her impassively, save for what she thought might have been sympathy in his eyes. She forced a tight smile.

 

“It’s nothing, really,” she said, falsely cheery. “I’m sure Max will have calmed down by tomorrow, that temper of his. It barely stings.” There was no other choice but to stay if she wanted to keep working at the club. She waited for him to say something in reply, but nothing came. Apparently, he meant to listen. “He gets terribly jealous,” she added.

 

“Ah. Men either take what they want with fists or words. It is impossible to say which is worse,” He said.

 

They’d sat for an unknown time of companionable silence. For some time after that, he lingered whenever Max approached her in the club, though nothing else was ever said.

 

When she’d been with Cliff and first found out that she was pregnant, she’d been distraught. The pregnancy itself was not so intimidating. Cliff, however, was more so. He was too sweet and she’d stayed with him too long, and now Cliff would trap her in his love and domesticity.

She went to _him_ first. Where else could she go? Sally had few friends, for all her acquaintances. And she knew his address. She’d never seen him outside of the club, though, away from all of the smoke and glitter. The surprise on his face when he opened the door was almost satisfying.

 

“Sally Bowles,” he said, wry smirk tugging at his mouth. “You’ve turned up on my doorstep. To what do I owe this pleasure?” His face was completely clean of makeup, which was strange, and his hair was soft and clean instead of slick with product and sweat. He had a green robe tied around him. Normal leisure wear. How odd. She’d never been able to imagine what he would be like in a normal house, in normal clothes.

 

“Darling, haven’t you missed me terribly?” Sally asked in response, gesturing brightly at her face. He raised an eyebrow.

 

“Oh, I mourn Frauline Bowles daily,” he agreed. He seemed to enjoy saying her name. “I hear she went off to live with some novelist. An American. So why is she here?” Sally’s face fell only for a moment.

 

“Oh, we fooled around for a little while,” She said.

 

“Months.”

 

“Yes, well, it was convenient,” she sniffed, drawing her coat tighter around her. “Now, aren’t you going to invite a girl in? Incredibly rude, you know.” She had been afraid that he would scoff and throw her out, but before long she was seated at a small kitchen table with a bottle of good gin and two glasses. The home was nice enough, but it looked supremely unlived in, for someone who barely spent time there. A place to sleep, not to live in.

 

“Spin me a tale most woeful,” said he, knowing somehow that Sally had only come here in strife.

 

“I’m pregnant,” she replied. There was a moment of pause as the word settled, then he nodded and picked up the gin, moving it away from her.

 

“The novelist.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Congratulations,” he murmured, but the tone insinuated sarcasm.

 

“Ha! Hardly,” she said with a bark of bitter laughter. “I’m no mother. I couldn’t have a baby, how utterly mad. You understand.”

 

“Why would I understand?” he challenged. Sally faltered for a moment, did a double take. There was no way in hell he had a family.

 

“We’re alike, don’t you think? We’re not the settling down type. We’re night people. We’re just different. Aren’t we?” She lobbed the question at him, wanting him to agree and feel this kinship. Even if he was his own person, so separate, he could admit that he had a kindred spirit.

 

“Oh, you don’t want to me like me,” he said coyly, that wry smile from his performances popping up. Sally didn’t know if it was real or not.

 

Sally stayed for a while, and she talked herself blue while he listened. He nodded, smiled, offered a few choice words. Ultimately, he left the choice up to her, and she decided to be honest with Cliff.

 

“Until the next disaster, Sally,” he said on her way out. She’d thrown her head back and laughed.

 

Time passed. Cliff was gone, the German government was changing, and everyone was getting antsy. For a time, there was a suspended peace. It was the calm before the storm stretching out indefinitely, and the Kit Kat Klub was more popular than ever. Sally was adored, and he asserted each night that the patrons must leave their troubles at the door. Each time, he seemed to be more forceful.

 

Then, rumors started up. Blood stains on sidewalks and whispers of people moving, going to see family, going on holiday. It was around this time that Sally had her last disaster with him.

 

Hitler had become chancellor of Germany, more like a legal dictator. Many rejoiced, and many more quietly shook with fear. He drank himself stupid. He was almost sloppy by the final number. Almost. He stumbled around after the show, slinging insults at dancers and laughing too loud, too harsh. He broke something. Sally decided, out of reciprocation, that she would be the one to get him home safely. No one knew what to say about their usually composed Master of Ceremonies.

 

When she lugged him into his home, the first thing he did was stumble to the toilet and vomit. She stayed with him despite the stench, patting his back and smoothing back his hair. It was the most motherly thing she’d ever done. She owed him.

 

They ended up on his couch. She was watching him to see if he’d go to sleep, and in the back of her mind she knew that something was wrong.

 

“Ah, Sally Bowles,” he said, grinning. He didn’t seem very happy. “It comes down to the two of us, ah?”

 

“You’re too drunk, darling,” she told him.

 

“I’m just as drunk as I wish to be,” he retorted. He slumped back on the couch and sighed loudly. “I am drinking my troubles away. Don’t you see?” She didn’t see.

 

“What troubles?” she asked quietly. He leveled her with a look so morose.

 

“You should leave here, mm? Go back to England,” he said in place of an answer. The similarity of his words to Cliff’s made him shiver.

 

“Don’t be silly! England never suited me properly. The club is better than ever! Everything I have is here,” she reasoned, patting his knee. He seemed to deflate, and she’d never seen him so vulnerable, so empty.

 

“There is nothing good here,” he said, not fierce or joking or coy. He was sad. Sally almost cried at the sight of it.

 

“What do you mean?” she breathed. She prayed he’d answer.

 

“They’re taking it all away. Get out of Berlin, Sally Bowles, while you can.”

 

Sally left his home late that night, troubled and more aware of the ominous quality to the air than she had ever been in all of her life.

 

And then just like that, like he was nothing at all, one day he was gone.

 

The Jews had been taken, evacuated, stolen away. Sally went to his house, went to the club, but he was not there. He’d vanished. One by one, cabaret boys and girls showed up, and she was forced to tell each of them that he was gone. It was her burden. Some laughed, some cried. Some just stayed silent. He’d never said it outright, but perhaps they’d all known. A Jew.

 

Had he known? That drunken night, had he known that his days were numbered? Could he have guessed that he’d be taken?

 

Within weeks, the club choked and was shut down. His presence had been the lifeblood, and without him the magical quality of the night seemed to be drained. Sally took his advice, while she was able, and left Berlin. There was nothing for her there but a sour taste in her mouth. She slipped out just in time.

 

Years passed, then. War came and went. It was horrifying. After the war, the papers raged with the camps, the gas, the horrors. It made her feel sick. She thought of him, rail thin and lifeless. She refused to try and search for him, because she didn’t want to confirm her fear. With Europe in shambles, Sally went to America. To Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

 

She found a bookstore with a picture of a familiar face plastered over the window. A book signing. Her heart leapt and she almost went in. She could have planned it. Sauntering in, saying that she hadn’t gotten a copy of the book but still wanted to meet the author, his surprise. Perhaps, his joy. At the last second, she tore herself away from the store window.

 

Later, though, she did buy a copy. The inscription was thus: _To Sally, to fulfill a last request to a perfectly marvelous girl._

 

She wept. When she read the first line, she wept anew.

 

_There was a Cabaret, and there was a master of Ceremonies, and there was a city called Berlin in a country called Germany. And it was the end of the world._

 

 

 


End file.
